


a bird cage

by sunflower_8



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Codependency, Nonbinary Komaeda Nagito, Obsessive Behavior, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, non-cathartic ending, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_8/pseuds/sunflower_8
Summary: everything was perfect for so long-- they had it, they had their friends, they had some kind of tranquility.but of course, it all fell apart.and it was all their fault.(in which they find someone worthy of worship, only to learn that they put their faith in a nightmare).
Relationships: Enoshima Junko & Komaeda Nagito
Kudos: 16





	a bird cage

they found something so horribly soft, and they killed  _ it _ .

xx

when they met  _ it _ , they were a few months younger. not young enough to have cherry-coloured cheeks, not young enough to have a smile a little brighter than what it was, not young enough to have hidden away all the pain, carefully, with chubby fingers and the wisdom you lose when you turn ten. 

certainly, they were not young enough to be a fool.

but they were. they found  _ it _ when they were old enough to have known better. to have carefully traced their fingers across the hollow of their own skin and known-- no reason to have, just  _ known _ \-- that they were sitting on a cloud again, so high from the lack of oxygen that they can hardly see the storm below them. the storm the same colour as their eyes, their skin, everything. 

and even when the storm took everything, they had only watched. because there are so many ways to see everything fall apart without ever believing that you would be hurt next. there are so many artful ways to convince yourself that everything would be fine, for once, a reprieve from all the pain.

they had hurt so, so much in their life, but when they met  _ it _ , they had believed, for a single fragment of a second, that they were free.

like a bird in the storm. still in its cage.

xx

their first conversation was in a crowd. 

fifteen couples of people, or maybe thirty singles, or maybe scratch the record tape one more time and look harder, pay more fucking attention, komaeda-- there were thirty people there.

one of them. one of  _ it _ .

their eyes had met.

they had seen something beautiful in  _ it _ . soft skin, a little bit rosy, and a pretty smile. light-coloured curls that traced down  _ its _ face, brushing past  _ its _ cheeks and settling around  _ its _ waist. and  _ its _ eyes, so bright and beautiful a colour, so soft and lovely and wonderful. they had seen  _ it _ in  _ its _ beauty, this magnificent thing, and they were only thankful that  _ it _ spared a glance to them.

when they talked to  _ it _ later, across the room while everyone else talked, it felt like the world had swallowed them up, both of them, into this tiny bubble of a thing. something they never wanted to pop, because they hadn’t breathed in so long and they were so reverent for this presence, they would have destroyed every limb in their body for  _ it _ . 

they watched  _ its _ lips touch the bottom of a wine glass, and they laughed so incredibly loud.

later, they were sobbing, violent and messy and ugly, but  _ it _ had cupped their cheeks and told them, softly, that they were deserving. that it was okay to cry, that  _ it _ wouldn’t have said a single word against them, that  _ it _ would protect them as they let out what they’ve kept inside for so fucking long.  _ it  _ had been so sweet to them, so saccharinely sweet, almost cloying-- they never wanted to leave.

the entire world, and  _ it,  _ and them. in this order.

eventually, they had to leave. they watched  _ it  _ through the window, talking to some of the others--  _ they didn’t look so impressed with  _ it,  _ why was  _ it  _ around people who were hardly devoted, why did  _ its  _ eyes shine around someone else, when they had vowed to give  _ it  _ everything? _

they must not have tried enough, they think. they must try harder.

xx

everything started to hurt them when the groups became smaller. 

now, there were only seven people, excluding them. and  _ it  _ cherry-picked them all, held them in  _ its _ arms and swore that they could trust these people. it was strange, because they already knew the people around them. but they trusted  _ it.  _ of course they did.

nobody seemed to be as invested in  _ it  _ as they were. they had been told in the past they were obsessive, though, ugly and obsessive, an unattractive trait, so they swallow up every word of worship they want to lay at  _ its  _ feet and sit back, watching, as everyone begins to speak.

_ it  _ loved the others more than them. this was obvious-- the way  _ it  _ moved,  _ its  _ careful words, the way that  _ it  _ was so willing to wave them off in order to do other things. and they knew, truly, that they were the lowest of the low, they were filth, they were never a priority, nobody would ever put them first. so even the fact that  _ it  _ considered them worthy of love, however small the portions, brightened everything up. 

_ it  _ was the sun.  _ it  _ could make everything awful go away. and selfishly, they clung, because they needed the awful to go away somehow, they needed it gone, they needed it ripped from their body because they needed to be worthy enough for  _ it.  _ but  _ it  _ was the cure,  _ it  _ was the way to make it all better. it was an endless cycle. it always was.

sometimes, they would sit in their bathtub, late at night, still able to hear  _ it  _ from the foyer with all the other guests, and they would take their sharp fingernail to their thigh and tear as hard as they could. and they would never see blood, but if they closed their eyes and dreamt, they could imagine all the awful leaving them, they could imagine everything that must have made them putrid exit their body, they could curl up over the toilet sink and though nothing came out, they could just  _ think  _ about it, imagine a world where they could get rid of all the poison in their blood that must be so, so awful to taste. 

sometimes, in the dreams they never told anyone about, they wanted  _ it  _ to eat them alive. not in a physical sense, they hardly felt like prey, but in the sense of wanting to be consumed so, so badly by something so beautiful. as if all the nothing and all the everything could be met in the middle by  _ it.  _

nobody else thought this. they convinced themself that this was the truth, because if the others believed it, that meant that  _ it  _ wasn’t just theirs,  _ it _ was  _ everyone’s _ . but  _ it  _ was what kept them alive, silently, quietly, for a while. 

they needed  _ it.  _ but  _ it  _ never needed them.

they laughed at the thought, only because they expected nothing else.

xx

they know a few people.

some remind them of when dusk is just beginning to start, when the sky is still orange and the summer trees still sway, and it’s rather hot outside but they can’t bring themself to mind around them, when everything is so happy-- not in an emotional way, something physical, like there’s some pit in their stomach that bloomed to a peach-- and they love them.

some are a bit cooler. they can look them in the eye and read all their thoughts, playing their cards carefully to make the most out of a second. people that they can rely on, though they are ever so calculated, and sometimes they feel like crawling into their amiable-yet-intelligent arms and closing their eyes and thinking, just thinking, knowing they won’t be dropped.

neither are like  _ it,  _ though.  _ it  _ was like every bright summer, every cool autumn, every refreshing winter, every pretty spring.  _ it  _ could hold them in  _ its  _ arms and  _ it  _ never let go, swinging them around, knowing everything about them with just one long look, and they loved  _ it,  _ they loved  _ it  _ so much, the way they were spinning for so, so fucking long. 

_ it  _ wasn’t the only person they spoke to then, though. while speaking to  _ it  _ felt like an honor, and  _ it  _ was the only person they never got frustrated with, they sometimes talked to others. even when it felt like it was hardly worth it.  _ it  _ offered everything, but the others offered  _ something _ .

(and when  _ it _ was gone-)

some conversations were long. some were about funny things, or stuff they had seen in passing, or some were pitched lower and more serious. when the topic of  _ it  _ came up, everyone seemed pleased, because everyone loved  _ it _ , they always did. they talked about their love for  _ it,  _ how they dreamed of swinging in arms forever, because they wanted  _ it  _ so fucking badly, they wanted the peace.

they heard the word codependency once. they turned a blind eye.

everything was perfect for so long-- they had  _ it,  _ they had their  _ friends,  _ they had some kind of tranquility.

but of course, it all fell apart.

and it was all their fault.

xx

the storm beneath them started to build as they watched inexplicable things occur.

sudden dislike. the way people described  _ it  _ was no longer the way they saw  _ it.  _ they talked about absurd things-- skin that seemed to pile over itself, eyes that were calculated and shrewd, a body just big enough to swallow everything whole. and when they had said it, they didn’t seem as repulsed by the figure, more by the  _ mind  _ of  _ it,  _ and they-- komaeda, they-- had been so lost.

because they knew  _ it.  _ they were smart, they were clever, they knew people because people had hurt them before in the past, and they had been so unlucky in the past, but they  _ knew it. _ and they  _ knew,  _ they had  _ trusted _ , that  _ it _ wouldn’t do  _ anything  _ to them. 

so it came to them, then: everyone must have been wrong about  _ it.  _ and they would fight for  _ it.  _ even if it meant they’d have to die for  _ it.  _

so they stayed quiet. listened from afar. heard all the warnings and came crawling back to  _ it  _ the next day.

even when  _ it  _ started to look a bit different. even when  _ it  _ was just a little less perfect. 

still, they stayed. still, they returned.

xx

they couldn’t tell what broke them.

maybe it was the realization that, after months of confiding in  _ it,  _ recalling the worst things to ever happen to them, the nights where red nails clawed into them-- but different than  _ its  _ red nails, of course-- and the way that shadowy figures would touch them, how they always felt like someone was hurting them, and  _ it  _ had told them that this was no excuse, that  _ it  _ didn’t want them to go down the same path  _ it  _ did; maybe after months of confiding in  _ it,  _ they finally started to see the layers of skin, the eyes glinting dangerously, that it only took a few careful words to blind them to the reality that was  _ it. _

when they’re drawn from their isolation only to swallow themself in it once more, they start to notice. they learn that those warnings were true, that there was something underneath that softness, something far darker. something that  _ it  _ had hidden so well.

the very thought drew their panic taut, the idea that they fell for such easy deceptions, that they’ve drawn blood on several occasions at the thought of  _ it,  _ that they learned to be quieter because of  _ it,  _ that  _ it  _ taught them their place in the kindest, sweetest of words. that in their love for  _ its  _ perfect smiles and melodic voice, they had self soothed into denial. those hours spent telling  _ it  _ all their frustrations should have been placed elsewhere, that their confessions left in  _ its  _ lap will only be taken for betrayal.

and still they believe in  _ it,  _ that the way  _ it  _ held them when they were screaming and clawing over what had happened to them was real, that  _ it  _ was honest whenever  _ it _ confided in them and said that  _ it  _ loved them, that this beautiful fucking thing  _ loved  _ them, someone as  _ unlovable  _ as them, that they’re still seeing  _ it _ with rosy cheeks and bright smiles, even though they have come to know some other horror.

their friends speak to them, telling them that  _ this was manipulation, she was hurting you, enoshima junko was hurting you,  _ but still they can’t handle it, the thought that they were so  _ easy,  _ that even after everything they’ve gone through they still chose to trust.

and months later, they sit in the bathtub, faucet off and throat dehydrated, listening to the sounds of their friends in the foyer and wishing that they could hear  _ it  _ one more time. that even if  _ it  _ was hurting them-- taking a knife to their skin, or calling them a worthless, unlucky freak, or ripping them apart-- that at least  _ it  _ would still be there,

because they miss  _ it. _

they miss  _ her. _

xx

they think, sometimes, while looking through all the voicemails and texts they left her, thinking back to everything they ever said, that maybe it was their fault. that they were the one to ruin her. that they found something so horribly soft, and they killed her.

and that everything that followed suit, and brought them here, was just swinging from the gallows.

xx

they don’t unlock the cage.

even after it all happens, they ask nobody else to. they keep it locked, even when the storm starts up below them. they have a collar and a leash, and they stay tied up as all the people around them quietly plead  _ let go.  _

sometimes, they think about throwing away the key. staying caught in the tether, never being released, always being at mercy to her and never moving on. sometimes, they wish they could just be in her arms one last time, that they should leave everyone else that ever told them  _ this is bad,  _ because how could it have been so awful when they loved her so much? 

but they don’t. even when they sit there, paralyzed, they don’t throw away the key. because they believe the words their friends say, something about moving on, listening to a recording and saying  _ fuck you, enoshima junko,  _ or moving in with one of them for a bit until the pain breaks. they believe it, even when they know that in the pit of their stomach, they don’t know if they can ever move again.

they were so, so lucky to have known her. they’ll never be that lucky again.

so they stay quiet, even when their friends tell them it’s okay to be loud, it’s okay to take up space. they hollow themself out as if all the things that she was-- rosy-cheeked, blue eyes, none of the horrific amalgamations they envisioned but not an angel, either, somewhere in the middle-- could consume them still; they take walks and try to convince themself that she won’t find them again. they let their fingers hover over the  _ send  _ button, or sometimes a knife, because when it gets late they both look the same, but they never press down. 

they stay in the cage, scared to fall out on accident, scared to let out a birdsong. they stay for what feels like forever.

because they found something so horribly soft, and they killed her.

xx

(sometimes, they think they’re only waking up for the chance to hear her say  _ i forgive you. _ )

**Author's Note:**

> hi. this is a vent fic. 
> 
> january is always a particularly heavy month for me. this january was no different; rather, it was a bit harder.
> 
> i don't have a lot to say, here. if you happen to know me and i've told you, over the course of this year and the last, what this situation is about, please do not comment or leave a bookmark's note or anything. i doubt anybody will. i'm just scared, i think. 
> 
> recent trauma is difficult. i will be fine.
> 
> stay safe, everyone. i love you. until next time.


End file.
